LETTER FROM NEW ENGLAND.

BY JONATHAN.

Healy's Picture-The Occasion-Artistic Character of the WorkThe Bloomer Costume-Causes of its failure-Reasons in favor of a National Costume.

SINCE I wrote you last, Mr. Healy's long-expected painting of Webster replying to Hayne, in the senate of the United States, has been exhibited in our city. It was one of the great attractions of the notable week of the railroad jubilee in September. Throngs resorted to the Atheneum from the din of the city to study this noble historic scene; and but one opinion seemed to prevail respecting its excellence.

Healy, I suppose, now ranks at the head of our portrait-painters. He has also a high European reputation. Louis Philippe employed him to supply a series of the portraits of the Presidents of the United States and other public men of the country. Mr. Webster's was among these, and, in our humble judgment, was the best of them. The French King estimated the artist's powers so highly, that he also gave him a commission for a large number of portraits of eminent men in England, designing to add them to the great collection at Versailles. The royal permission was obtained to postpone the last commission, that the artist might first prosecute the present great work. The revolution of February followed, and thus Mr. Healy lost the advantage of the munificent contract. While we regret the damage to his purse, we can not but feel gratified that he has, meanwhile, secured the opportunity of copying from life the chief personages of the present picture, some of whom have already passed away, while others are fast passing. You can judge of his labors from the fact, that some one hundred and eleven original portraits have been painted by him from life for this work, and most of these have been executed with elaborate care and accuracy. About two and a half years ago he departed to France, with these preparatory materials, in order to complete the composition under the influence of the great masterpieces of the French galleries.

Thus much of the artist; but what shall we say of the picture? The occasion which it represents is one of the grandest in our senatorial annals-the greatest day in the great constitutional debate of 1836, and unquestionably the greatest effort of eloquence ever made in our national legislature. Messrs. Benton and Hayne had been leading in the debate on one side for several days. On the 25th of January Mr. Hayne concluded a great speech which he had begun some days before. He was emphatically severe against the New England states, and asserted, with great urgency, the "doctrines of nullification." Mr. Webster replied on the next day. Mr. March, in his very entertaining "Reminiscences of Congress," has described the memorable scene with intensely interesting minute"The house of representatives was early deserted.

ness:

An adjournment would have hardly

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made it emptier. The Speaker, it is true, retained his chair; but no business of moment was or could be attended to. Members all rushed in to hear Mr. Webster, and no call of the house or other parliamentary proceedings could compel them back. The floor of the senate was so densely crowded that persons once in could not get out, nor change their position. In the rear of the Vice-Presidential chair the crowd was particularly intense. Dixon H. Lewis, then a representative from Alabama, became wedged in here. From his enormous size, it was impossible for him to move without displacing a vast portion of the multitude. Unfortunately, too, for him, he was jammed in directly behind the chair of the Vice-President, where he could not see, and hardly hear, the speaker. By slow and laborious effort, pausing occasionally to breathe, he gained one of the windows, which, constructed of painted glass, flanked the chair of the Vice-President on either side. Here he paused, unable to make more headway. But, determined to see Mr. Webster as he spoke, with his knife he made a large hole in one of the panes of the glass, which is still visible as he made it. Many were so placed as not to be able to see the speaker at all." "He was at this period in the very prime of manhood. He had reached middle age-an era in the life of man when the faculties, physical and intellectual, may be supposed to attain their fullest organization and most perfect development. Whatever there was in him of intellectual energy and vitality, the occasion, his full life, and high ambition might well bring forth. He hence rose on an ordinary occasion to address an ordinary audience more self-possessed. There was no tremulousness in his voice nor manner; nothing hurried; nothing simulated. The calmness of superior thought was visible everywhere, in countenance, voice, and bearing. A deep-seated conviction of the extraordinary character of the emergency and of his ability to control it, seemed to possess him wholly. If an observer, more than ordinarily keen-sighted, detected at times something like exultation in his eye, he presumed it sprang from the excitement of the moment, and the anticipation of victory."

The effect of the great senator's eloquence was profound. "There was scarcely a dry eye in the senate," says Mr. March; "all hearts were overcome. Grave judges and men grown old in dignified life turned aside their heads to conceal the evidences of their emotion. In one corner of the gallery was clustered a group of Massachusetts men. They had hung, from the first moment, upon the words of the speaker, with feelings variously but always warmly excited, deepening in intensity as he proceeded. At first, while the orator was going through his exordium, they held their breath and hid their faces, mindful of the savage attack upon him and New England, and the fearful odds against him, her champion. As he went deeper into his speech they felt easier. When he turned Hayne's flank on Banquo's ghost, they breathed

freer and deeper. But now, as he alluded to Massachusetts, their feelings were strained to the highest tension; and when the orator, concluding his encomium upon the land of their birth, turned, intentionally or otherwise, his burning eye full on them, they shed tears like girls!"

Mr. Everett, who was present, and who is represented on the canvas of Mr. Healy, says, "Of the effectiveness of Mr. Webster's manner, in many parts, it would be in vain to attempt to give any one not present the faintest idea. It has been my fortune to hear some of the ablest speeches of the greatest living orators on both sides of the water; but, I must confess, I never heard any thing which so completely realized my conception of what Demosthenes was when he delivered the Oration for the Crown."

Such was the occasion which the artist has attempted to picture. He has done his task well; but one of the strongest indications of good sense and good taste about it, is the fact that he has not attempted to reproduce the highest interest of the occasion. He knew this was beyond any power of imitative art. The sublime energy of the orator, the agitation of the assembly-these could not be painted unless also the very sentiments of the speaker, his very tones and gestures, could be expressed on the canvas. Mr. Healy has, therefore, wisely chosen to represent a moment in the debate which was marked, not by passionate declamation, but profound thought. The figure of Mr. Webster is the very impersonation of thought. His brow is tranquil, but full of thoughtful expression. His left hand rests upon the desk by his side; but it is clinched; and no gesture could be more expressive of the nerve and grasp of thought which is supposed to mark the moment. The appearance of the audience corresponds. Some of the hearers are intently listening; others seem to indulge in a brief diversion of their attention. Benton, who sits behind him, is rapt with interest; his eyes gleam. Near at hand is Judge Story, whose usually radiant and scholarly face is lit up with a marked expression of satisfaction, as if he would say of the constitutional arguments of the orator, "Answer them if you can." Hayne himself, who sits in front of the speaker, and whose face was naturally an amiable and noble one, looks aside with compressed lips. Calhoun, who presides, eyes the speaker with the keenest attention. His hand is clinched like that of Webster, and he seems ready to start from his chair. Prescott, the historian, amidst a group of New Englanders in the gallery, looks calmly thoughtful, with his chin resting on his hand. Longfellow, the poet, at the other extremity of the gallery, finds leisure, while the imagination of the orator gives way to logic, to direct his attention to a group of ladies hard by, none of whom, except Mrs. Benton, seem very attentive. The ladies, who occupy a large portion of the gallery, all appear to have relaxed their attention for the moment, and, indulging in a little mental

respite, smile radiantly upon the scene around them.

I have not remarked these facts as defects. They comport with the other indications of the picture, and are, I suppose, designed.

I have mentioned that more than a hundred of the portraits are original. The hearers on the floor of the senate, whether senators or spectators, are remarkably accurate. Any one who has seen the senate can recognize them without the printed "key." Mr. Webster is, of course, the ostensible figure of the foreground. He is represented to the very life, not as he looks now, but as he looked twenty years ago-his person strong and dignified, his face full, but not flabby, his eye serene, yet glowing, his incomparable head the very throne of intellectual grandeur.

Mr. Webster is not my most favorite statesman; but I would accord him justice, if not eulogy. His person as well as his intellect has unquestionably been one of the noblest ever seen among men. It is even yet so, notwithstanding the effects of age. On his late visit to the east, I had the opportunity of seeing him through an hour or more on board one of the little steamers which ply in our harbor. He was affected by a catarrhal illness, under which he suffers every summer, and looked languid and even decrepit; but his brow would still do as a model for the sculptor's Jupiter Tonans. A more perfect head, eye, nose, and mouth could hardly be imagined.

Next to Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun is a figure of mark in the picture. He is almost a contrast, in physique, to the orator before him-slight, keen, wiry, yet full of intellect of the sharpest sort. The other portraits most accurately given are those of Everett, Story, Longfellow, Davis of Massachusetts, Benton, Frelinghuysen, Tyler, Judge M'Lean, and Cass.

The portraits of the ladies who adorn the galleries are evidently not designed to be remarkable examples of accuracy. Mrs. Webster, who stands in a prominent position, gazing upon her husband, looks like a very fairy of beauty. Twenty years may have made a difference; but she is now noticeable for a masculine energy of face which indicates more of talent and character than of feminine grace— a perfect lady, but certainly no sylph. Mrs. Polk is well known for similar traits of character and person-a truly noble specimen of the energetic western woman; but she smiles, on this canvas, an example of delicate and roseate beauty. Mrs. M'Lean is presented as a noble, intelligent, and dignified lady; I know not how accurately; Mrs. Benton as a rather homely and motherly personage. There is a general uniformity about the female faces in the gallery which the spectator can not fail to notice a grace and delicacy designed more to contrast with the masculine countenances of the lower part of the picture than to be an accurate expression of the ladies represented. This is no detraction from the composition. Mr. Healy's object

was to represent well the orator and the senatorial scene immediately around him. The gallery portraits are mere adjuncts, sufficiently accurate and not too much idealized for the general design.

I hope you shall have the pleasure of seeing this great work in Cincinnati. It will be a national memorial to be contemplated by future Americans with the reverence with which we gaze upon the great productions of the old masters.

The experiment of the Bloomer costume has been an item of some interest in this quarter during the summer. A few words on the subject may not be unacceptable to your lady readers. The Repository, or at least one of its contributors, has advocated a reform in our female costume. In one of your former numbers it was said, "Our climate demands peculiar native adaptations of dress, etc.; but if our women will wear French shoes and French 'modes,' or even English, they must pay the cost of them, not only at the expense of the purses of their husbands, but of their own attractions, their health, and their days. We flatter our national self-complacency for the invention of the steamboat and magnetic telegraph, the quadrant and the cottongin. There is one more improvement to be made among us, which can hardly be less intrinsically valuable—a graceful and healthy national costume for American women, which shall protect their beauty by protecting their health, and, at the same time, cast out from the land the expensive frivolities and abominations of foreign fashions-fashions contrived by Parisian mantua-makers and milliners, whose taste is about as wretched as their morals. The accomplished editress of 'The Ladies' Book,' Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, proposed a national costume some years since. The suggestion is worth repeating, though almost hopeless. Two conditions might secure it partial success, at least: first, that it be unquestionably appropriate and tasteful; second, that a considerable number should courageously adopt it at once. Both these conditions might be secured."

I am disposed to think that these sentiments meet with a response from most of your readers. Nevertheless, the Bloomer costume has failed-failed utterly, and failed so here in Massachusetts, where the most determined efforts to introduce it have been made, and where, too, if any where, new "notions" are boldly adopted. It still lingers in some of our interior communities; but in Boston it has disappeared, except in a few cases of children. This failure is not without cause, and just cause. Some ascribe it to the fact that the reform took its rise among a certain rather peculiar, though respectable, class of society, whose authority for so important an innovation the higher classes, especially the "ton," are not disposed to admit. The ladies of New York state, who first donned the new dress, are somewhat noted, we believe, as abolitionists of the Garrison and Gerritt Smith school, and as advocates of the new doctrines of "woman's rights." The costume first appeared, I believe, in an abolition

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convention. The character of its introducers in these respects may have militated against it in certain quarters, but we think not generally. There is really too much independence among American women for them to be influenced, to any great extent, by such considerations. If the new style had commended itself to the public good sense and good taste, it would have been more generally adopted among the class who gave it what brief, limited reception it did receive the class that makes up the mass of our sterling American women, and which is not quite sufficiently reverential of the higher classes to be deterred by their verdict from a really sensible and desirable improvement.

What, then, is the reason that this innovation has not succeeded? Is it not that the good sense and good taste of the sex have seen something in it morally exceptionable? We think this is the secret of its failure. It has been commended almost if not quite universally by the press in this section. Articles from even medical authorities have appeared in its favor in some of our gravest papers; and its modesty has especially been asserted, but with an emphasis which itself shows the apprehension of serious objection in that respect.

Modesty in dress depends, of course, not a little on conventional opinions. The costumes of some of the cantons of Switzerland would be more objectionable to American taste than the so-called Bloomer dress; while in Switzerland they are considered perfectly proper, and are the traditional habits of a virtuous and even pious peasantry. Our traditions are, however, different; and it is quite foreign; in more than one sense, to go to Switzerland for an argument in favor of a change so extraordinary. I think the indisposition of American women to accept the new dress is not an example of prudery, but of genuine delicacy, and is honorable both to the sex and to the nation. Mr. Greely, in writing from England, says that the English women shrink from the innovation, and he rather impeaches their moral courage. A want of courage in such a case is certainly a very amiable defect, and the refined, womanly heart will receive the impeachment as a compliment.

This Bloomer costume erred by attempting too great a change. Had the reformers been content to shorten the skirt by only about one-half the extent of the diminution actually made, the great, the decisive objection would have been prevented. If a farther change in this respect were really desirable as a convenience for walking, it could have been subsequently effected without much difficulty. The revolution was too bold and too sudden, and is another example of the effect of rashness in defeating measures generally acknowledged desirable. It is to be deeply regretted that more caution was not exercised, as both health and elegance require an improvement in our present female fashions, and the Bloomer costume certainly presents some very fine adaptations.

In conclusion, Mr. Editor, it may be hoped that

LEAVES FROM AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

TAKEN OUT OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.

BY PLEBEIUS.

acknowledged, are absurdly against good sense and good taste? Secondly. A national costume might be made a national ornament. It could be continued with genuine elegance; it could be natural, simple, beautiful, with sufficient variability to suit different ages or different forms. Who doubts that such a costume would be a national improvement on our present foreign models? Third. It would contribute to the convenience of the sex. The alleged advantages of the Bloomer dress are its adaptations to walking, to the ascent of hills, and its consequent cleanliness; these adaptations could be retained in any new model without the moral disadvantage already mentioned. Fourth. It might be so contrived as to avoid many of the disadvantages to health which are imputed to the existing fashions. The excellence claimed by the Bloomer dress in this respect could be retained. Fifth. It might, with such adaptations to different ages and forms, as above suggested, maintain sufficient uniformity to avoid the immense expense occasioned at present by the rapid changes of fashion. All these considerations are important; but this last one is vastly so. Scarcely can a "mode" be adopted nowadays before it must be abandoned or changed, to meet some new demand of fashion. This caprice is not only vexatious, but almost incalculably expensive. The national pecuniary tribute thus paid unnecessarily to the whims of foreign fashion-makers, would be absolutely incredible were it presented in figures. It would amount to more than enough to educate all the children and youth of the land. We can not expect, of course, that a national costume will introduce national common sense, and restrain entirely this folly; but, if rightly contrived, it may give such uniformity to female dress as to restrain this extravagance to a very great extent.

Your lady readers will excuse these suggestions. We, their husbands, have a much more intimate interest in the matter than they may suppose, not only from the pecuniary considerations involved, but from those of health and elegance, of good sense and good taste.

THERE is no saying which shocks me so much as that which I hear very often, that a man does not know how to pass his time. It would have been but ill spoken by Methusaleh in the nine hundred and sixty-ninth year of his life.

CHAPTER VII.

First Methodists who settled on the Kanawha-Rev. W. SteelPreaches first Methodist Sermon in Kanawha Valley-Extent of his Circuit-Guyandott Circuit formed-Rev. Asa Shinn sent to itHis dress and personal appearance-His attention to study-His

Mr Shinn in Life of Rev. J. Quinn-Anecdote of Mr. Shinn on first seeing a Clock-Two Presbyterian Ministers attend his Preaching-Eis Text, and the subject of his Sermon-Rev. Mr. Norris's recent visit to Mr. Shinn-His present condition described-Rev. W. Pattison preaches on Elk River-Rev. A. Amos forms there the first Methodist Class in the Kanawha ValleyNames of Members then enrolled-Subsequent increase of Methodism in the Valley-Subject for next Chapter.

MRS. W. and her eldest son, from whose autobiography we copy, were the first Methodists who settled in the Kanawha Valley. Of the introduction of Methodism and the formation of the first society there, through their means, we propose now to give some account, to preserve this fragment of the Church history from the oblivion in which it would otherwise soon be lost.

Immediately after settling in Charleston, Mrs. W. and her son made inquiry whether there were any Methodists in that section of country, but could hear of none. Fortunately, however, they soon afterward met with two old Methodists from the banks of the Ohio river, the western limits of the county, who, as Justices of Peace and ex-officio judges of the county court, were in attendance at the November term. These were Jesse Spurloch and Thomas Buffington-one residing at the mouth of TwelvePole creek, the other at the mouth of the Guyandott river. From them they learned that the Rev. William Steel, of the Little Kanawha and Muskingum circuit, in the Baltimore conference, preached once in four weeks at the houses of each of those gentlemen; and by them they sent an invitation to Mr. Steel to visit the family of Mr. W., and preach in Charleston. This he regarded as a providential call; and, through inclement weather and almost impassable roads, or rather paths, over a mountainous and uninhabited region, and crossing dangerous streams, he arrived at the house of Mr. W., in Charleston, and, on the next day, January 1, 1804, preached to a good congregation in a room of the same building. This, so far as we are informed, was the first Methodist sermon preached in the Kanawha Valley. Mr. Steel now took Charleston into his circuit, and it was thenceforward supplied with preaching regularly every four weeks. The circuit then covered a large territory on both sides of the Ohio river, embracing the new settlements on the Muskingum and Little Kanawha rivers, and down the Ohio to the mouth of Twelve Pole creek. It was a four-weeks' circuit, with but one preacher, who had long and fatiguing rides from one appointment to another, often without roads, and mostly through a wilderness of unbroken forests. The territory then included in the circuit, with adjacent,